Multiple reports say that free agent pitcher CC Sabathia has chosen not to return to the Milwaukee Brewers, and to pitch for the New York Yankees.

After three days of meetings with Yankees general manager Brian Cashman, he agreed to pick the Yankees over the Brewers and other reported suitors like the Los Angeles Dodgers, San Francisco Giants and Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim.

The deal is worth more than $160,000,000 over seven years, and is the largest such deal for a pitcher in baseball history.

The Brewers offered him five years and $100,000,000.

"I was informed this morning by the representative for CC Sabathia that the Brewers are no longer under consideration as it relates to his client's free agency," Brewers General Manager Doug Melvin said in a statement.  "We made a substantial offer in hopes of retaining CC's services but understand and respect his decision."

ESPN reports that former Brewers director of scouting Jack Zduriencik, now with the Seattle Mariners, is trying to pull off a trade with the Brewers to send Prince Fielder to Seattle in exchange for Mariners closer J.J. Putz.

Milwaukee Never Really Had a Chance at CC

As much as the Milwaukee Brewers hoped they could hold on to the pitcher that helped deliver the team its first playoff appearance in 26 years, and even with general manager Doug Melvin saying the team still was in the running, the amount of money Sabathia signed for proves the team's five-year offer wasn't even in Sabathia's ballpark.

"We always knew it was going to be impossible for the Brewers to close the gap between their $100,000,000 and the Yankees to any significant extent," said Journal Sentinel writer and 620WTMJ Brewers 360' contributor Tom Haudricourt, who talked on "Wisconsin's Morning News."

"The Brewers never came off the five year, $100,000,000 offer. I'd been reporting that they never had any wiggle room in that offer, that they had stretched themselves just to get to that point. That offer had some deferred money in it. They were never going to be able to do that, to compete with that.

"Their biggest hope was that Sabathia would not want to go to New York. I don't think he really wanted to go, but when the Yankees made their offer, which was a record for a pitcher, they had two main things in mind.

"One: to bring Sabathia so much money that he would have to take it, and two, to discourage other bidders from getting in, because they realize they wouldn't be able to compete. They were successful on both fronts."